


remember those walls I built (well baby they're tumbling down)

by Macremae



Category: EOS 10 (Podcast)
Genre: Canon Retelling, M/M, atypical au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-07
Updated: 2016-05-07
Packaged: 2018-06-06 21:22:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,731
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6770428
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Macremae/pseuds/Macremae
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ryan can sense and manipulate emotions. Urvidian can shapeshift. Jane is a pyrokenetic. Levi sees the future (ish). Akmazian can create illusions. None of them really have any idea what they're doing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	remember those walls I built (well baby they're tumbling down)

**Author's Note:**

> The Bright Sessions is a gr8 podcast with a cute empath who is gr8

Exactly three seconds after Dr. Urvidian passes out, Ryan is hit by a veritable mac truck of negativity. He gasps and stumbles back a few steps, because _he knew it was bad but holy shit_. A migraine instantly settles in his head, and he has to take a moment and remember to breathe.

“Jesus Christ…” Ryan manages. Jane shoots him a sympathetic look. 

“Empath?” she asks.

“Yeah,” he replies, “Oh my God. He is _not_ okay.”

Jane raises and eyebrow. “What gave you the first clue?” she says sarcastically.

“No,” Ryan explains, staring at the sorta pathetic-looking man in front of him, “I mean, he’s really not okay.”

Jane laughs bitterly. “Yeah, well,” she tells him, giving his arm a condescending pat, “welcome to EOS 10.”

\--  
“I’m a little impressed,” Ryan says much later, following Urvidian’s gaze out the window.

“With what?”

“Well, inebriation tends to take down a lot of emotional barriers, so when I first met you I nearly got knocked over with how awful you felt, but now I can’t sense anything. It’s like a brick wall.”

Urvidian turns to look at him strangely. “You can’t feel any of my emotions?”

“Only the really strong ones.” Ryan cracks a smile. “You really don’t like me, do you?”

“I would think that would be obvious, even to someone without your ability.”

“Fair point. Then again, I don’t think anyone but a shapeshifter could make themselves a second liver.”

Urvidian goes quiet at that, and it’s pretty clear the conversation is over.

This is going to be slightly harder than Ryan thought.

\--

Once Ryan figures out that Aryans are extremely susceptible to emotional manipulation, Levi becomes a little less of an annoyance. The problem is, he can predict that Ryan is going to change his fear to boredom, and takes steps to prevent it. Luckily, tinfoil hats don’t actually work, and the infirmary is temporarily at peace once more.

\--

There are a lot of things pissing Ryan off tonight.

There’s the pain, and embarrassment, and the fact that more people have seen his dick than he _ever_ wanted, but the cherry-on-fucking-top is the fact that this guy’s emotional shields are basically Teflon. 

Never before has Ryan wished so hard that he could read someone’s emotions, and never before has it been so damn impossible. 

And the best part? Akmazian (because that’s a totally innocent-sounding name) knows it. He’s literally taunting him at this point, and it's so goddamn frustrating. With most people, there’s a tiny crack of some sorts, but Akmazian? _Nothing_.

He desperately hopes that his and Ellie’s “twin-lepathy” is taking the night off, because this molotov cocktail of “oh God why me” is going to take some explaining. 

\--

There are a few downfalls of empathy.

The first is that it’s involuntary. Ryan can’t help being able to feel other’s emotions, it’s like trying not to taste your own tongue. Sometimes, when the day’s latest disaster is over, and the infirmary is full of victims, it feels like there are hundreds of feelings swirling inside his head at once, and he can’t tell which are his anymore. There’s just so much noise, and things are already loud enough, and he’s going to go break a few pencils now because your fear is completely invalid Levi so _shut the fuck up and go away_.

It’s like PMS and puberty had a kid with bipolar mood-swings.

The second drawback is that, because of the manipulation part of his ability, his mood can affect that of those around him. When Captain Price is going on and on about her rights or something, Jane gives Ryan a look of concern. There are waves of hurt and fury radiating off him, and when it spikes when he says “developmental disorders”, she gets a clue. On the bright side, empathy is pretty much the best power for a kid who had to teach himself social cues, to have, so there’s that silver lining.

Sometimes it’s a perk. Ryan is usually in a pretty good mood, so things mostly run smoothly until Problem of the Week #446 rears it’s ugly head. 

 

\--  
When the Admiral dies, everyone figures out pretty quick that something is wrong. It’s hard not to notice that you always feel insanely depressed around one particular colleague, who just happens to be an empath. 

When Jane and Levi go to deliver the cat, Akmazian weaves an illusion of invisibility around himself, and follows them. He feels his heart flutter when Ryan’s face breaks into a huge grin at the sight of Morpheus, and the disguise flickers from a moment.

Jane notices him out of the corner of her eye, but says nothing. She gets it.

\--

“They’re plants,” Ryan yells at Jane, who is not being helpful at all by just trying to shoot the encroaching vines, “just light them on fire!”

“The nearest weapons locker isn’t for a couple hundred feet!” she shrieks back.

Ryan gives her a look that says “why did you waste oxygen by saying those words”. “Are you fucking kidding me?! Are you a pyrokinetic or not?!”

“Oh, right,” Jane says sheepishly, and proceeds to happily blowtorch Levi’s latest attempt to make everyone’s day a little harder.

\--

When Admiral Callaghan suddenly turns her gun on herself, Ryan knows something’s wrong. 

He’s aiming his rifle, and pretty much the picture of unbridled fury right now. This is the bitch who enslaved the minds of hundreds of people. This is the bitch who helped to frame Akmazian. This is the bitch who’s trying to melt his friends’ brains.

This is the bitch who killed his dad.

Ryan unconsciously directs all of his rage at her, and watches as, without a warning, her expression changes from one of anger to horror. She looks at him, _looks right at him_ , raises the revolver to her temple, and pulls the trigger.

Callaghan’s blood splatters on Ryan’s uniform like raindrops.

He can’t breathe again.

Once Jane and Urvidian regain enough of their minds to see what’s happened, all they can do is stare.

“Oh God,” Ryan says quietly, a hand over his mouth, “Oh God.”

Everyone keeps asking if he’s okay, and he know’s he’s definitely not, but everything is numb and colorless with the gravity of what he’s done. Later, after reports have been filed and examinations given, and really, Ryan insists, he’s fine, it’s not important, there are people to help, he stands in the middle of the quiet infirmary.

His uniform is still covered in blood, and there are Olympic-sized bags under his eyes, and can’t stop shaking.

Akmazian has the courtesy to materialize in front of him, and stands a respectable distance away. “You alright?” he asks.

Ryan doesn’t answer for a moment. “I was so angry,” he says, staring at the ground. “I was so angry, and I didn’t know- I didn’t realize I was in her mind. And she…”

He takes a deep shaky breath, “I made her kill herself.”

He lets out a choked sob, breaths coming fast and uneven, and the world blurs in shades of red and grey, spinning around him until the colors are a cacophony of silence and ache, until everything is so loud and so much and-

There are arms around him, and a warm body in front of him that’s alive, so beautifully and wonderfully alive, and Ryan cries because how could he have ever thought this man could blow up a star system when there is so much kindness in him. 

Akmazian spends the night on the couch until Ryan wakes up screaming. He sleeps easier with someone holding him.

\--

After the incident, Ryan begins to notices the tiniest of cracks in Akmazian’s mental wall. There are many more adventures, near-death experiences that leave them sprinting breathless into the Silent Storm, laughing hysterically and holding each other to make sure they’re still there. The hand holding while running is purely a coincidence, as are the long looks when the other isn’t watching.

Ryan starts to sense Akmazian’s feelings more and more. He can tell when he’s worried about Ryan coming along to a dangerous meeting, or satisfied that a plan is going perfectly. Sometimes, it feels like one emotion is beginning to peek through, but it disappears before Ryan can catch a glimpse. 

Until, of course, they’re trapped in a freezing cell huddling for warmth, and even if he wasn’t an empath Ryan would still feel Akmazian berating himself.

“It’s not your fault,” he tells him.

Akmazian frowns harder and looks away, “‘Course it is. I never should’ve brought you.”

“I came because I wanted to. Besides, you’ll figure something out. You always do.”

Akmazian blinks at him, something flickering in his eyes. “You trust me like that?” he asks softly.

Ryan smiles at him. “Of course.”

That’s when the crack widens, and suddenly Ryan can sense that runaway feeling again. It pushes through Akmazian’s wall, fighting against the boundaries , until there are hundreds of cracks webbing together, and the dam bursts, and Ryan is hit with a shockwave of it all:

Love.

His breath catches, feeling the full force of it wash over him like an ocean of sunlight. Akmazian realizes what has happened, and stiffens. 

“I- I didn’t- I’m sorry, I don’t-” he stammers, closing in on himself, cheeks red hot. Ryan stares at him, something stirring in the pit of his stomach.

“You-”

“Yeah.”

“And-”

“Yeah.”

Ryan cannot stop smiling. 

When they finally stop kissing and actually come up with a plan, it’s rather effective, if they do say so themselves. They barely make it back to the ship alive, but potato potahto.

\--

Akmazian is helping stack supplies in the infirmary when Ryan trips over the new neomaiphlarcograph, and onto his boyfriend. They land on the floor, Ryan on Akmazian’s chest, and stare at each other for exactly three seconds before bursting into laughter.

A time ago, there might have been blushing and teasing and snarking, shoving feelings away into boxes and rolling eyes at flirtatious smiles, but that isn’t the now. Now Ryan laughs and leans down to plant a kiss on Akmazian’s lips, because he can do that now and is going to make the most of it. He can feel so much love coming from him, shimmering and warm in waves of light from a sun itself.

They don’t have walls anymore. They don’t need them.


End file.
